said Angelo, "and after all that you have said against her."

"I have merely surmised-I know nothing against Miss Westbrook. Until this morning I have never suspected her for an instant."

"She should have been above suspicion always."

Mr. Salmon passed into the house, and found Mabel Westbrook equipped for travelling, and sitting by the side of his better half, who had been evidently weeping.

She

Mabel met him with a bright smile as he entered. This was as it should be. was parting amicably. Mrs. Salmon had managed a delicate piece of business with more judgment than he had given her credit for.

"I could not leave St. Lazarus without bidding you good-bye, Mr. Salmon, and thanking you for all your hospitality," said Mabel as he entered.

Going to leave us!" replied Mr. Salmon with an affectation of surprise that was very badly done.

Angelo turned abruptly from his father, and went on across the meadows to the country road lying beyond the hedge-rows in the distance. He had promised Mabel that he would take a walk-she had wished to get rid of him that morning, and thought that a stroll would do him good, and he would set about it at once. He wanted time to consider the new position of affairs before Mabel left St. Lazarus, and he wanted that time to himself, and away from his father, whom he left looking after him. Mr. Gregory Salmon made no attempt to follow; he was wise enough to see the futility of pressing his arguments more closely on his "Does she, though?-dear me," ejaculatson that day. They would have their weighted the Master. "Well, we shall have lunin due course, for Angelo was mild and tract- cheon in half an hour," he added with a dash ; able, and there was no necessity for haste you will not go till then?" now. Angelo was walking steadily from home and Mabel Westbrook, and was comparatively safe in consequence. What might happen before he was back to luncheon, who could tell?

If the Master of St. Lazarus had already sketched forth a programme in his mind, it was disposed of by a prompter course of action on the part of the lady principally concerned. As he walked across the quadrangle, he saw that Mabel's boxes were at the front door, and that Hodsman the porter was bringing round a barrow for them. The Brethren of the Noble Poor, interested in the flitting, had collected in a group upon the grass to talk of it—like a wheezy chorus in an ancient play. Much of the history of Adam Halfday's life and death had found its way to his old companions, and the American girl's connection with the story had afforded food for comment here. The loss of her fortune was not known to these old men, who had learned to regard Mabel with awe and admiration, as a guardian genius of St. Lazarus, who might benefit each brother in his turn. At the outer gates, Miss Westbrook's hired carriage stopped the way, and in the carriage Dorcas-who had accompanied Mabel to the Hospital-waited for her patroness, and was dull and stolid.

"Somewhat unceremoniously, perhaps,' said Mabel; "but I have been here under false pretences, as I have been telling this good friend of mine, who begs me to remain."

"I should have waited till your return, Mr. Salmon, and only till your return," was Mabel's answer. "I have said good-bye to this lady and your son."

"Have you seen Angelo ?" exclaimed the Master.

"Mine was a farewell in disguise to him," said Mabel, "and I think it was as well. He would not judge me harshly for leaving without the formality of an adieu. Remember me to him, please," she added, as she turned to the mother and rested her hand upon her shoulder.

"I wish you would not go away so suddenly-as if—as if we had done something to offend you," said the Master's wife. "Mr. Salmon, this is quite a voluntary act of Mabel's; I have not said a word to her."

"Why should you?" answered Mabel. "Is it likely that you would so quickly after my misfortunes, as the world will term them presently. No, no; I give you credit for more kindness and charity, although it is my duty none the less to take the initiative."

"You have acted with great decision of character, Miss Westbrook," said Mr. Salmon, "and have certainly surprised us. But it may be for the best. Considering all things, I cannot blame you very much for the step you have taken."

"Considering all things, no," said Mabel sively; "it may be very soon. thoughtfully.

Mr. Gregory Salmon blushed; but she was not thinking of him.

"Had I been prepared for so complete a collapse of my property," added Mabel in conclusion, "I should have stayed away from a place which you were kind enough to press me to call home. But I was waiting for some portion of the wreck to drift to shore."

"It is a very terrible blow to you," said Mr. Salmon.

Mabel laughed so pleasantly that Mr. Salmon regarded her for a moment with amazement.

"Not at all," she said; "I never cared for money. It would not have done me any good, or brought me one true friend. Goodbye, Mr. Salmon, and once more-thank you."

Gregory Salmon felt a small-souled individual as he took the little hand of his guest in his and bowed over it politely. He was glad she was going, but he was more glad that it was of her own free will, and at no hint from his wife.

"Good-bye, Miss Westbrook, if you are really determined to depart so hastily," he said.

"Yes, quite determined."

"And you will return to--Penton, perhaps?" he asked.

"I don't know," answered Mabel; "I shall make up my mind as I go along."

She stooped and kissed Mrs. Salmon, and then went away from St. Lazarus ; and the brethren doffed their caps in mute respect to her as she passed them with a smile and friendly nod of farewell.

One brother of the Noble Poor, who had held aloof from the rest, Mabel discovered at the carriage door, talking energetically to Dorcas, and shaking his head with more vehemence than seemed necessary. This was Peter Scone, the senior member of the fraternity.

"She is a cross-grained vixen, my lady, Heaven knows that," he said, as if in explanation of his excitement.

"I don't believe it, Mr. Scone," answered Mabel cheerfully.

"She will not tell me where you both are going," he said.

"Is it necessary?'

Will you

read this as you go along, please?"

He thrust a torn scrap of paper into her hands, and tottered away under the archway of the Cardinal's Tower, like a man in great haste to get from her. Mabel entered the carriage and turned her back upon the Hospital of St. Lazarus for good. Her new life lay beyond it-strange and unknown and incomprehensible-but there was no shadow of it on her fair young face.

CHAPTER IV.

ANGELO SEEKS ADVICE.

The Penton Museum had been closed to the general public some two hours or more, and its curator had dismissed the last official —a certain Mrs. Ironbrace, whose mission was to dust and wash and scrub at the corporate expense, and to do generally for Mr. Halfday-when the noisy bell of the establishment announced a visitor. On that particular evening Brian had settled down. to work; there were more papers than usual on the table of his room, the lamp had been carefully trimmed and set on the right side of his desk, the desk was open and Brian was writing busily, covering many pages of foolscap with a thick and almost illegible scrawl, when the summons from without disturbed the flow of his ideas. Brian Halfday set his pen aside and listened. He was unprepared for visitors; he had considered himself a man without any friends beyond his bookshelves before Mabel Westbrook came to England; he had been reserved, austere, and studious to a degree that had aged and ossified him, and there had been so few calls at the museum after business hours that a ringing of the bell came as a novelty and a surprise. Still, he was a man who had been long ago prepared for emergencies, one who knew the value of time, and had made his arrangements accordingly. Servantless, with a horror of office-keepers and charwomen, he had arranged, after Dorcas had resigned her post as housekeeper to him and gone to St. Lazarus to nurse her grandfather, a system of communication with the outside world when occasions like the present necessitated a

"It may be some day," he replied eva- parley with it. He did not move from his

again," said Angelo. "The news came
to-day-
"Ha! to-day?"

"Yes, I said to-day," Angelo continued,

"You will give me a little time to collect myself, I hope," said Angelo, as he seated himself, and put his hat on the table at his side. "I have not the gift of dashing offhand at a subject, which appears to distin-"that the news came of the total loss of her guish you, Mr. Halfday. I am very slow. property; and she bore up like the brave Excuse me." woman that she is. My own private opinion, Mr. Halfday, is, that she does not care a bit."

"Take your own time," said our hero; "I am in no hurry."

"Thank you," said Angelo again.

Brian Halfday watched his visitor attentively, whilst he waited for the communication that Angelo had resolved to give him at his leisure. He even regarded Angelo Salmon with a strange, pitying kind of interest, as if the young man's' weakness or nervousness had aroused his sympathy as well as his curiosity. He thought, even, that it was not difficult to guess what was at the bottom of Angelo's thoughts to unnerve him in this way. He had sketched that idea faintly in his mind a few weeks since, and thought that something of the kind would come to pass some day; still, not so soon as this, or in this odd fashion.

Angelo thought out the position at his leisure. He took his time, as Brian Halfday had suggested; and it was a quarter of an hour at least before he burst forth with

"Mr. Halfday, I have had a few words with my father."

Brian's face, which had certainly betrayed anxiety, brightened up at this statement.

"Sons have done so before you, and been sorry for it," answered the curator. "When the father is a good man, and the son honest and straightforward, the difference between them is easily adjusted."

"He says he will not forgive me. He-" "For what offence?"

"You will excuse me, I know, Mr. Halfday; but I shall never get on unless you allow me to tell the story in my own way," remonstrated Angelo. "You pull me up suddenly, and disturb my ideas." "Go on," said Brian. not interrupt you again. ribly slow," he muttered.

"I will try and
But you are ter-

"Father and I quarrelled about Miss Westbrook."

"About her! Then she-Pray proceed," said Brian, as Angelo raised his hand deprecatingly.

"She has left the Hospital for good, as I was about to explain when you broke in

Nothing was said, Mr. Halfday," said Angelo ; "they gave me their word of honour that Miss Westbrook left of her own free will, and with many thanks and best wishes to them both."

"What did you and your father quarrel about?" asked Brian, doubtfully.

"That is the question I am coming tothough it was hardly a quarrel. A few words I said, if you remember?"

"Yes I remember," said Brian, wearily. "I was overcome at Miss Westbrook's sudden departure-I even shed a few tears in my distress—and I told them, what they knew before, and what they had seemed glad to know then; what I am too proud to disguise in any way from any living man,

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